


sometimes i feel an angel's touch

by wreckingtomlinson



Series: dusk and summer [1]
Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band), One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Famous Harry, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mildly Famous Louis, Punk Louis, a bit i suppose, but ok big trigger warnings here, the major character death is offscreen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 16:08:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4841876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreckingtomlinson/pseuds/wreckingtomlinson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis knows visiting the apartment probably isn't a good idea, but he does anyway. It's exactly as he expects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sometimes i feel an angel's touch

**Author's Note:**

> so this is actually an epilogue of sorts to a fic i've had in mind for more than a year now and just can't stay focused on writing, but i found this epilogue buried in my google drive, and since i don't think i'll ever get around to writing it in full i reworked this a bit so it can stand on its own. please please read the trigger warnings before reading!!
> 
> ok all that said enjoy! 
> 
> title is from [Probably Wouldn't Be This Way](https://youtu.be/JnjWaw0u8yE) by LeAnn Rimes.

“See you suckers in 2016!” Luke yells to his bandmates in the airport.

“New Year’s party, remember?” Calum reminds him. “Don’t ditch again.”

“Fine, fine. Zayn, get off of my bag!”

“But it has wheels!” Zayn whines, sitting on top of Luke’s suitcase and scooting around like he’s not a twenty-three-year-old in the middle of LAX.

“I’m so done with this band.” Josh throws his hands up and accidentally throws his drumsticks behind him in the process.

To anyone looking at them, they’d seem like a group of kindergarteners rather than a pop punk band in their twenties. Truth is, they’re a mix of both. Luke loves them, though. Their band name, The Rogue, fits a little too perfectly. They’re as much a part of him as his family is, and he wouldn’t trade anything about the way they work together. This, laughing and joking around, is the way they’re supposed to be.

But there’s something missing. One ringing laugh in particular, a clear cadence like bells, that’s been absent for months, replaced by hollow, forced, sometimes slightly genuine, chuckle.

Luke looks up from where Zayn is zipping around to the benches near the restrooms. Louis’ lying down on one, his phone clutched tightly to his chest like he’s waiting for a call, eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling. A hand grips at Luke’s heart and he wishes he knew what he could do for Louis. Louis had told them all not to treat him any differently, had snapped one day that he wasn’t fucking _glass_ , for god’s sake, so to stop treating him like he was some breakable thing.

They know better, though. Louis tries so, so hard to project himself as their strong, fearless leader, and for the most part, it works. Get him onstage and he moves like a demon, throwing his heart and soul into his voice, the passion bringing him to his knees as he belts into the microphone he has gripped in both hands. People love it, love seeing the raw emotion pouring out like he’s laying his soul bare for everyone to see. He’s real. Screw Iggy Azalea, Louis Tomlinson is the realest.

It’s been a few months. By Luke’s count, it’s been a little more than six since Louis got the news. At first, Louis had been a real fighter, holding himself together for the fall tour. Onstage, he shone, as he always did. But sometimes Luke would glance over in between songs and the smile would be gone, replaced by a bitten lip and empty eyes. But it would only last a moment, a few seconds at most, before the fire was back.

By the end of the tour, though, there was no more oil left in the lamp. How Louis soldiered through a month of album promo, photoshoots, signings, and interviews was a mystery. He was burnt out constantly, the smiles he gave never reaching his eyes. Some nights he disappeared from the hotel completely; sometimes, if their schedule was open, he didn’t come back for days. Luke found out later that Louis was going back to the old apartment he used to call home when they were on the west coast. God only knew what he did there all that time.

Louis doesn’t have a suitcase—he’d told everyone that he was staying in Los Angeles for another few days. He’d only come to the airport to see them all off.

Calum approaches the bench, talking softly. “Hey, Lou,” he says, “have a good Christmas. You coming to the New Year’s Party?”

Louis looks over at his bandmate and shrugs. “Yeah, probably. It’s tradition. I’m not Luke.”

It’s a weak attempt at a joke, but Calum humors him and chuckles. “Yeah, yeah. Let us know when you’re back in Boston.”

“Yeah, I will.” Louis swings his legs over the side of the bench and stands up, and Sandy immediately wraps him in a hug.

“Look out for yourself, okay?” Calum whispers.

Louis nods. “Yeah. I know.”

Calum's hug seems to signal the beginning of the temporary goodbyes, because then Zayn’s hugging him from behind and Josh is there too, and Luke jumps in with a cheer.

They all topple to the floor, Louis shouting for help, and then he’s laughing. Finally, actually laughing. It’s been so, so long since he really laughed like this, and he isn’t completely sure what’s triggered it. Maybe it’s the knowledge that his boys will always have his back. Maybe it’s the sheer ridiculousness of the whole situation, five twenty-somethings in a pile on the floor in the middle of the airport while people give them funny looks. Whatever it is, for a second, Louis feels okay.

But then they’re pulling away, and the lead weight settles in his chest yet again. “I won’t be long here,” he tells them. “Just need to take care of a few things.”

“Look out for yourself,” Zayn says. They must all be following the same script, but Louis appreciates it anyway.

“I promise. I’ll be back in Boston to bother you all before you know it.”

With that, they separate, Louis looking at his bandmates and all four of them standing opposite him. “Don’t worry about me, please,” he tells them. He can see in their faces that they won’t listen, that they’ll definitely worry about him, but it means they care, and that’s all he can really ask of them. Next thing he knows, he’s watching the four of them take off for the security checkpoint, and then he’s alone in the terminal. One might say it’s ridiculous to call him “alone” when there are a few hundred people milling about. But that’s exactly how he feels, alone. There’s no one left in this city that he’s close to. Well, there’s Niall. But Louis doesn’t want to bother Niall.

It’s the twenty-second of December. Normally, this is when he gets excited about his birthday on the twenty-fourth. But this year, with Christmas just three days away, he’s feeling the loss much more keenly.

Was it only last year that they partied with some of the biggest names in the industry on the top floor of a penthouse and gotten drunk and couldn’t keep their hands off each other? Was it only last year that he brought his boy home to Boston to meet his family? Was it only last year that they had a champagne-lipped New Year’s kiss in Zayn’s apartment while the rest of his bandmates whistled? For the way they loved and all they went through, it could have been half a decade ago.

“Do you need help, sir?”

A woman has materialized beside Louis, and her voice shakes him out of his head. “No, thanks,” he tells her. “I was just uh, just dropping some friends off. I’m going now.”

He turns on his heel and leaves before he has to say anything more. Explaining himself and the stuff inside his head isn’t easy without a pen.

 

***

 

The apartment is tucked down a quiet side street, away from the bustle and glitz of the rest of the city, in a highly private neighborhood known to be home to more than a few stars. Even in the years Louis has been coming here, the guards at the gate still balk for a moment before allowing him in, even when he shows his key.

It’s gotten worse in the last months. Now that Louis comes alone, even though he’s now the sole legal owner of the place, they still look at him like he doesn’t belong. He doesn’t, really. He knows he looks like a street punk, jeans ripped up to his thighs and ink covering the majority of his arms and chest, and the people who live in these houses have left shoes worth more than Louis’ entire wardrobe.

But it’s still home. Or at least used to be. He glares at the guard as he pulls up to the gate, flashing his identification and tapping his access card, like he dares them to say something to him. Today is a good day; he gets through without any trouble.

The apartment is exactly as he remembers. He hasn’t touched anything except to clean and make sure everything is in working order. Part of the homeowner fees in this neighborhood cover landscaping and all structural repairs, so that’s something he doesn’t have to worry about.

When Louis walks in, he sees a yellow sticky note on the mirror that faces the front door. It’s in Niall’s handwriting.

 

_12/2/15_

_Niall here! Checked on the place, everything looks okay. Haven’t moved anything, don’t worry. I’m leaving that up to you. Just cleaned a bit. Don’t know when you’ll see this, but if you want, give me a call ‘cause that means you’re in town. If you don’t want to that’s okay too, just text me and tell me you visited and that the place is okay. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Lou_

 

Louis smiles as he takes the note off the mirror, folds it, and slips it in his pocket. Niall’s like a brother to him too—the whole thing brought them closer. The apartment might be in Louis’ name but Niall does just as much to take care of it.

If any of his bandmates were to see him cleaning, their jaws would be on the floor. They of all people know that Louis _never_ cleans. They’ve spent too long with him on cramped tour buses to know that. But here, cleaning is therapeutic. It doesn’t require thought and it makes Louis feel, for an hour or two, like things are normal again. Like his other half is going to come back in any moment, groceries or shopping bags in his arms, and he’ll kiss Louis and start dinner and ask him about his day.

He turns the TV on for some background noise while he cleans, and before long, he’s got the vacuum running over the hardwood floors. And while he cleans, he thinks.

He thinks about how they met, in a hotel room in Santa Monica the summer before, put together for a week in hopes they could write a song or two together. Though they had gotten off on the wrong foot initially, everything changed after a whirlwind night of clubbing and drinking and heat. The week soon turned into ten days, ten days that neither of them wanted to see end. He thinks about how he’d ended up recording on one of the songs they wrote together, just two simple lines at the tail end.

He thinks about the smashing praise their songs had received, how _Rolling Stone_ had called it “pure magic” and “a dream collaboration.” He thinks about the American Music Award their single won, and how he’d been so proud to stand there on that stage and accept the most prestigious award of his life so far.

He thinks of the early New Year’s party they had gone to together, at the penthouse of some fancy five-star hotel in Los Angeles that Louis never would have dreamed of ever getting into otherwise. He thinks of the way they’d kissed under that crystal chandelier, champagne flutes in hand as they held onto each other and giggled, because nobody ever had to find out.

He thinks about the actual New Year’s party they’d both gone to at Zayn’s place at home in Boston, and how the two of them had stumbled out, blind drunk and clingy and handsy, and how somehow, a paparazzo had known where to go that night.

He thinks about how things had changed after that, how the papers had gone wild speculating on sexualities. He thinks about how he wasn’t allowed near his boy in public anymore, how he’d had to see his love parade around with some other pop singer, a very female one at that, all for the sake of _image_. He thinks about the awful, ugly words and sentiments slung at both of them, no matter who they were seen with.

He thinks about the nights they stole together in this very apartment when they’d both had enough, even if it was only for a few hours. He thinks about how they’d disappear from the eyes of the world and write together, for old times’ sake. He thinks about how every time, he’d see a little less light in those eyes he’d fallen in love with, and how he’d fought so save it.

He thinks about how, through some miracle, they were allowed to write together again, over the same week and a half of the year before. They had called it good business. After all, the last session had earned them an AMA and critical praise, so why not try it again? He doesn’t know which they did more, write or share the California king bed. He thinks about how, when he boarded the plane back to Boston after the ten days were up, it felt too final.

Louis has to stop before he starts crying, the dust cloth clenched in his fist. He hasn’t cried in weeks, which he’s proud of. He can even smile when he looks at some of the pictures.

He’s seen these photos hundreds of times. They’re on the walls, on the coffee table, on almost every surface of the house. He picks one up, wiping the dust off the glass with a careful hand, and smiles. This one might be his favorite.

He’s on the beach with a curly-haired, green-eyed, dimple-cheeked boy two years younger than him. They’re the only ones in sight. The sky is clear, the waves at peace, and the two of them are standing with linked hands looking out at the ocean. Two tattoos, one a rope and one an anchor, line up perfectly where their hands are joined.

Louis’ therapist had told him that at six months, he shouldn’t still be trying to block the painful memories, even though it’s much easier to bask in the rosy ones and pretend those are all he knows.

So he sets the photo down, puts his head in his hands, and thinks.

He thinks about the phone call, how his heart had dropped from his chest into some void between his lungs and his stomach when he heard. He thinks about the denial, how he couldn’t bring himself to believe it until he turned the TV on and saw that bright face on the news. He thinks about how they all said it was drugs, it was alcohol, it was the fast life of a pop star, but Louis knew the truth. He thinks about the text message he only saw after the phone call, about the goodbye meant for his eyes only.

He thinks about the song he wrote in the aftermath, when his thoughts were finally coherent enough to string words together again. He thinks about the first time he performed it with his band in their home city. He thinks about how his emotion had literally brought him to his knees as he poured his heart out for everyone to see, and how supportive the crowd had been.

He thinks about how hard it had been for him to push through the tour, but how raw and emotional the album had turned out. And he thinks about how it had been praised as their best album yet.

Somewhere in his thinking, Louis had started to cry. He supposes it’s about time anyway. He cries, covering his face and feeling his shaking hands get wet as his palms press to his cheeks. The sound echoes through the apartment, almost mocking him for his weakness. He only cries when he’s alone, and right now is about as alone as he can get, in their old house with all of the memories and material evidence that yes, they were _real_. They were as real as anyone else, as Angelina and Brad or David and Victoria Beckham. Nothing fake or contrived could make a heart hurt like this.

Louis doesn’t know how long it is until he brings himself back, gets ahold of his emotions again long enough to steady his breathing, wipe the tears away, and get back to cleaning. He has a goal in mind for today and he’s going to see it through. Once he’s done cleaning, he goes to the closet just off the front foyer. He thinks it’s intended for coats, but they had used it for something else instead.

It takes him a few tries to find the right box, but his heart jumps half a beat when he finds the one marked “Christmas.” It’s almost as if no time has passed at all. Everything is nestled inside, clearly packed by someone much neater than Louis, and he’s almost reluctant to pull out the garlands but he does anyway. _It’s what he would have wanted,_ Louis reminds himself.

And so he decorates the apartment. They don’t have many Christmas decorations, but he hangs the garland under the fireplace mantel and pins up their stockings, his blue and his lover’s green. There’s no tree, but he hangs the ornaments on the garland itself, and tapes the paper snowflakes they’d cut out together on the walls. They had laughed while doing it, because Los Angeles doesn’t get snow but Louis had never known a Christmas without it. Before long the place looks cheery and ready for the holidays. It looks warm, like someone lives there, and Louis lets himself be proud of his work.

“Merry Christmas,” he whispers, his voice surprisingly even, before he closes the door behind him until the next time he comes.

 

***

 

The next day dawns grey and cool. It’s as if the weather knows where Louis is going today.

The service was kept private with the help of the entire security team, and they chose a cemetery small enough that random fans wouldn’t be likely to be walking through but big enough that in case fans did somehow locate the cemetery, finding the individual grave would be difficult.

Louis stops in at the memorial center to tell them where he’s going, and they offer him flowers to take. He’s got a small wreath to lay there, so he declines. The cemetery is nearly deserted today—everyone’s already come by to pay their holiday respects. Many of the graves he passes have some sort of Christmas wreath or potted poinsettia in front, and with a heavy heart he looks down at his own. It’s nothing compared to those, but he’s never been good with flowers and it’s all he has to give.

The grave he’s looking for always comes before he wants it to. It’s a smooth slab of black granite, with music notes on the sides and a dove in the center. The birth and death dates are far too close to one another. Louis hates that. There’s already a potted poinsettia there—so his wreath is enough.

He’s never been one for praying, but he drops to his knees and rests it against the stone carefully, fingers shaking even though it’s not cold out. And he stays, running through all the things he never got the chance to say. _I’m sorry. I miss you. I should have picked up the phone that night instead of falling asleep. I wish the world was nicer to a sweet soul like you._ He never knows what to do here. It would be rude to just walk away, he thinks, but he doesn’t want to sit there and sob like he’s seen some people do at cemeteries. So he says the only thing he can manage without breaking down. It’s the same thing every time.

“I love you, Harry.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sorry
> 
> thank you so much for reading! 
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](http://maybetheyrefireproof.tumblr.com)


End file.
